Kit Kat Accused of Copying Atari Game Breakout (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Kit Kat's maker Nestle has been accused of copying Breakout, the 1970s computer game, in a marketing campaign. Atari, the company behind some of the most popular early video games, has filed a suit alleging Nestle knowingly exploited the game's look and feel. The advert showed a game similar to Breakout but where the bricks were replaced with single Kit Kat bars. Nestle said it was aware of the lawsuit and would defend itself "strongly" against the allegations. Breakout was created as a successor to "Pong" by Apple founders, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. In the advert, which is titled "Kit Kat: Breakout", a row of people, of varying ages and appearance, share a sofa and play a video game during their work break. In the game depicted, a primitive paddle moves side-to-side to bounce a ball into a collision with the horizontal bars ranged across the top of the screen.

Comments

Shouldn't have used the name 'Breakout'

[rsilvergun]

that's where they screwed up. Funny thing is Atari probably could have got a lock on brick breaker games if they'd set precedent early enough (Namco/Atari won the KC Munchkin case as I recall).

Re:Shouldn't have used the name 'Breakout'

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot copyright game mechanics.

Re:Shouldn't have used the name 'Breakout'

[tepples]

For one thing, that depends on the country.

For another, in Slashdot's home country, you can copyright those elements that are just outside the scope of "mechanics". For example, the mechanics of Tetris aren't copyrighted, but the specific use of the seven one-sided tetrominoes with those mechanics is.

Not your Granddaddy's Atari...

[__aaclcg7560]

The current iteration of Atari is just recycling the Intellectual Property (IP) from the 1980's. And, not surprisingly, filing a lawsuit to protect the IP from everyone else.

Re:Not your Granddaddy's Atari...

[tsqr]

There is no "abandonment" in copyright.

Well, actually there is, and you'd know that "copyright abandonment" is a term of law if you'd troubled yourself to do 15 seconds of research to find out your impression was mistaken. However, failure to defend a copyright does not constitute abandonment; abandonment requires an explicit release of the copyrighted material by the copyright holder. Go ahead, search on "copyright abandonment". It won't hurt much.

free to play

[PopeRatzo]

Can someone give me one good reason why the Atari game Breakout shouldn't already be in the public domain?

Re:free to play

[__aaclcg7560]

Infogrames paid big bucks for Hasbro Interactive that had the Atari IP, renaming the company to Atari, and, like its namesake, took a tour through bankruptcy. They're going to squeeze out every last penny out of the Atari IP since that's the only thing they still have after the dot com bust.

Re:free to play

[PopeRatzo]

Infogrames paid big bucks for Hasbro Interactive [wikipedia.org] that had the Atari IP, renaming the company to Atari, and, like its namesake, took a tour through bankruptcy. They're going to squeeze out every last penny out of the Atari IP since that's the only thing they still have after the dot com bust.

So, some corporation that is three times removed from the people who actually created the work are able to prevent the work from entering the public domain.

Ain't capitalism grand?

Re: free to play

[gfxguy]

Money != Greed. Money is a medium through which we exchange goods and services; money is a "good thing" unless you want to get chickens or have your wagon wheel repaired in exchange for writing software.

I'd also point out that even the oft misused quote "money is the root of all evil" is a wrong - the actual quote is ".... for the love of money is the root of all evil."

Re: free to play

[gfxguy]

I knew what the post meant, I also know that purveying this "money is evil" nonsense is harmful to open discourse.

break me off a piece of that big law suit!

[Joe_Dragon]

break me off a piece of that big law suit!

Re: break me off a piece of that big law suit!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pathetic. How fucking desperate have "Atari", or rather the people who own the Atari name, got to be to try to sue over something like this? Key points:

*The game is old.
*The game itself is a ripoff of Pong.
*Nobody has cared about Breakout for a long time.
*Kit Kat's commercial is clearly a parody and thus protected by fair use/fair dealing laws.

Maybe Atari should try creating something new instead of resting on ancient laurels. Past accomplishments don't mean shit, what are they doing NOW? That's the only thing that matters.

Here's the Move

[drinkypoo]

Quick, do a cross-marketing promo with Squeenix. We never meant to invoke the primitive 1970s Atari title Breakout, your honor. We were clearly referring to Arkanoid.

I live in an alternate universe

[narcc]

Where Nelson Mandela died in prison, kids read The Berenstein Bears, and

Breakout was created as a successor to "Pong" by Apple founders, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs

Oh, Atari

[JohnFen]

The Atari that produced Breakout hasn't existed for a long time. The name "Atari" no longer even refers to a single company -- it is simply a brand name that is licensed to be used by a number of companies.

So even though the Atari we all know and love died a long time ago, it saddens me to see the current owners of the name drag it through the mud like this.

Re:Controversional as it sounds

[Attila Dimedici]

We should probably amend that law and set it to 20 years from first publication.

There fixed that for you.

Actually, I would like to see copyright changed to 14 years from date of first publication with an option to renew it for an additional fourteen years. I find the idea of allowing copyright holders to pay for longer extensions something worth considering (If Walt Disney wants to pay $10,000 a year to keep the copyright on "Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" going indefinitely, I can be convinced to allow that).

It's berakout, so what?

[fox171171]

I don't see how they can deny it. It's pretty obvious it's Breakout.

On the other hand, I see absolutely no sane reason that it should matter in the slightest.